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Where did the name
"Jeep" come from?
 I don't think
anyone really knows where the name Jeep came from,
but one of the more popular theories claims that our favorite vehicle
was named after Eugene the Jeep. Who the heck is Eugene,
you ask? Eugene was a character out of the comic strip
Popeye, created by Elzie Crisler Segar. Eugene was a small, impish, 4
dimensional character that lived in a 3 dimensional world. As such, he
was not constrained to the world we know - he could do wondrous things
like walk through walls, walk on ceilings, appear out of nowhere. In
short, he could go pretty much anywhere he wanted. Eugene the Jeep
appeared in Popeye in 1936 - about 4 years before the US Army started
testing its new 1/4 ton utility vehicle - which would eventually be
called the Jeep. No one really knows WHY this new vehicle was
called a Jeep, but one theory has it that Popeye was an extremely
popular comic strip at the time and the soldiers were so impressed with
the new vehicle's go-anywhere, do-anything capabilities, they were
reminded of Eugene's character; and so dubbed the new vehicle a "Jeep".
The first coinage of the word "JEEP", as applied
to a motor vehicle, occurred during WWI. According to Major E.P.
Hogan, who wrote a history of the development of the Jeep for the Army's
Quartermaster review in 1941. The word "Jeep", he wrote. "is an
old Army grease monkey term that dates back to WWI and was used by shop
mechanics in referring to any new motor vehicle received for a test."
Jeep was still used in Army motor pools well into the 1930's as general
purpose or "GP" for short.
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